Effective Poster Design

creating a poster to effectively convey content

Function

• Academic posters are utilized as a method of promotion and explanation for research
• They are most commonly intended for use as a complement to another presentation of your research, such as...
  • an academic talk
  • a scientific paper
  • a publication
• Of lesser importance than the material they are supplementing, hence their serving more of an introductory purpose

Poster Sessions

• Juried presentation of research
• The jury is typically comprised of persons from various research teams with an academic or professional focus
• Poster sessions are an expected element of most scientific conferences, wherein one finds a dedicated zone for this function
• As far as scheduling goes, one will often find that each project is presented in as short as 10 minutes, or as long as a few hours.
• Poster session zones often look the same, regardless of the particular conference, in that they usually consist of portable walls, upon which the posters are affixed; the researcher(s) stand next to their respective posters, answering questions
• 
  • image source

Design

• Stay visual, avoid dense amounts of text
• Use a large typeface
• According to the University of North Carolina,
  • An effective poster is:
    • Focused >>> on a single message
    • Graphic >>> lets graphs and images tell the story; uses text sparingly
    • Ordered >>> keeps the sequence well-ordered and obvious
  • An effective poster will help you:
    • engage colleagues in conversation
    • get your main point(s) across to as many people as possible
  • An effective poster operates on multiple levels:
    • source of information
    • conversation starter
    • advertisement of your work
    • summary of your work
  • "A penny for the thought" regarding effective posters:
    • An effective poster is not just a standard research paper stuck to a board. A poster uses a different, visual grammar. It shows, not tells.
    • Are your posters attracting large audiences, or are your posters examined only by your most avid competitors or admirers?
  • An ineffective poster is often marked by one or more of the following traits:
    • objective(s) and main point(s) hard to find
    • text too small
    • poor graphics
    • poor organization